CCTV footage has emerged of a heckler hurling a glass at a comedian on stage, drawing blood.

The assault took place at London's Top Secret Comedy Club back in October, but the comedian who was attacked, James Loveridge, has just posted the film on YouTube.

The heckler flung the glass as he was being led out of the show, having already tried to empty his pint over Loveridge after getting upset at bearing the brunt of the comic's putdowns.

As he passed the bar at the back of the room, he picked up another glass and flung it with considerable force over the heads of the audience.

Luckily it missed the comedian, and shattered against the wall behind him, prompting Loveridge to exclaim: 'Fucking hell! And you thought you'd had a bad week.'

The comic kept smiling, but one punter pointed out: 'You're bleeding. Your back is bleeding.'

'We all bleed for our art,' Loveridge said from the stage.

Police were called after the heckler was escorted out – but officers insisted no crime had been committed since the glass missed its target.

Cameras in the venue captured everything, while mobile phone footage caught some of the audio. Introducing the film, Loveridge said: 'The gig had been going really well… [until] I decided to mention I was from Essex.

'Now usually that wouldn't be cause for a fight or a glassing, but there was a man in the crowd who was also from Essex who decided to shout out and make out that his area was better than mine, which I explained was a redundant conversation as all of it's crap and it's not the sort of thing you care about once you're past 16 years of age.

'I took the piss out of him; he didn't find it funny, and that's when he decided to rush the stage and throw his drink over me.

'Now most of it misses me and goes over the ceiling, which I find quite funny, and at this point he's getting escorted out and I point out that his drink's gone over my head just like my jokes went over his.

'Not wishing to waste an opportunity I decide to take my top off and dance underneath the beer that's dripping from the ceiling…'

And the heckler struck while the shirtless comic was 'recreating Flashdance' on stage.

Loveridge – who said this was the first major heckling incident in six years of performing comedy – added: 'On the plus side, at the end of it, I got eight new Twitter followers. That's one follower for every shard of glass that I picked out of my back that night.'